


A Primer on the World of Mania.

by Hopelikehell



Category: Fall Out Boy, Mania AU - Fandom, Mania-verse
Genre: Gen, M/M, MANIA AU, Primer, alternative universe, mania-verse - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 14:54:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18263612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopelikehell/pseuds/Hopelikehell
Summary: In a world of monsters, souls, ancient beasts, and humans, this AU follows the ideas created by disloyalorder and (formerly) soulpunk. It’s an open-source world that anyone can build in and on. This is the simplified storyline, but I encourage you to read everything over at officialmaniaAU.tumblr.com.(Some parts of these notes contain my personal headcanons, but seeing as this isn’t a prominent fandom on here, if you want to get more invested you should read more on the official tumblr).





	A Primer on the World of Mania.

The majority of the story takes place in Chicago in a world where every person is born with a monster. There are two planes of existence on earth: the monster plane and the mortal plane. These monsters can be fantastical creatures which typically provides some sort of power that relates to it’s bonded soul (which inhabits a vessel, or human). 

The world was created by entities called the Ancient Beasts, one of which sought to create mortals in its own likeness. This Beast was clumsy, foolhardy, and egotistical to boot. An old friend who disagreed with the Beast’s plans told The Pantheon. When its creations appeared on earth, they were pronounced abominations by the ruling class of Beasts. When the beast’s creations died or were destroyed, their souls returned to a pool called “the Ether”. These new souls tainted the purity of the pool, leading to more corrupted souls and individuals.

As punishment, the Beast was sentenced to a world called “The Howls”, a prison where all of the tainted aspects of a soul were drained from the Ether. This corrupted the Beast further until it became nothing but a sludge being of hatred, hunger, and revenge. It became known as “The Big Bad”. It created drones and harvesters, looking for certain human souls that would increase it’s power and fuel it to eventually take back the world and make it entirely in its complete likeness.

Flash forward a few millennia into the future:  
A prodigy drone-spawn of TBB breaks free of the hold the Beast has on it. It gains a consciousness and seeks an identity outside of the killing hivemind. He names himself Pete. Pete is a very unique individual. TBB created it’s vessel by stitching the “best” parts of deceased and soulless individuals together, a skin for Pete’s soul to reside in. Hubris is something TBB would never admit to, despite its many encounters. Pete escapes the Howls and tries to find himself and a purpose, eventually settling on revenge. He figures, without any research or first hand knowledge, that he can overpower TBB if he consumes enough souls and takes their powers. What Pete didn’t count on was having a conscience, skewed but still in place. He didn’t count on the humanity he found within himself.

When he makes it to Chicago, he’s thrust into the territorial nature of the many gangs that run the streets while the city sleeps, including the Cobras. The Cobras are run by a rich and cunning man named Gabe. He’s ruthless and tricky. No one really fucks with him, especially since his dad controls much of the financial districts and his close friends have trade ties. (Think Draco Malfoy as being more of a reckless asshole).

He also runs into Andy and his rescue-charity team, The Network. Their focus is to help those in need who are less fortunate or are in circumstances that are less than ideal (such as individuals forced into child labor, prostitution, domestic abuse, or who suffer from drug addiction or unique medical issues). Andy is a tech nerd with a heart dedicated to the wellbeing of others. His monster is a blind rock-like creature with three crab legs and closed eye sockets. It uses echolocation to see its surroundings and is extremely focused. Andy has named his monster “Axelle”, but calls it “Zell” for short (it’s very androgynous, but Andy prescribes it she/her pronouns). Andy also has a sort of sixth sense ability that essentially ups his natural empathy and sensory levels, mostly due to Zell’s own abilities, but also because he’s a focused straight-edge vegan that practices CrossFit and yoga. 

After living in the mortal world for a year or so, Pete gets wind of some ancient tablets that are supposed to provide power to someone who can gather all of them together. When he gets his hands on the first one, he can’t read any of the carvings. He could barely read or understand English when he first came to the world, but he can’t make rhyme or reason out of the glyphs and symbols. Fortunately, he eventually finds someone who can.

Patrick is your average history buff/museum worker, or at least he would be if he didn’t have the super rare ability to understand ancient texts that even the most well studied of mortals can’t make out. He’s a walking Rosetta Stone, all thanks to his monster, a two-headed (going on three) furry dragon-like Beast that shares soul parts with one of the now passed Ancient Beasts (oh and the irony is that Patrick’s monster, Champion, shares souls parts with the Beast who outed TBB, while Pete and his monster are spawn of TBB. Also the ancient beasts used to be very good friends until that betrayal). 

Patrick also gets visions of the past, present, and future, which is a real inconvenience to his every day life. They don’t always come true, but they are vivid and unforgiving in what they show. When they happen, he is completely incapacitated and helpless. It’s like a seizure meets a panic attack that doesn’t let go until he manages to wake up and get his breathing under control. Luckily, he has Joe in his life.

Joe is from the outer suburbs where conspiracy theories and myths run unchecked in the wilderness, far from the eyes of the sheltered citizens that live closer to the central parts of the city. He moved to the inner city for school, where he met Patrick. They got along right away, sharing an interest in music and finding some sense of normalcy in their crazy world. It only seemed natural for them to become roommates after college. Joe and his monster, Mooshke (affectionately called “Mooshe” - a floating skin and bones cartoonish deer-like creature that stands on its back legs, has three eyes, and a colored flame between its antlers), can see the auras of people and their monsters. Joe can turn it off, or not be overly affected by the colors he sees around him, but he knows how people feel, if they are hiding something, or are just in “a mood”. Mooshke’s flame sometimes changes color based on the feeling of the room. He also bleats loudly like a goat if he’s scared or confused.

They look out for their companions when Patrick gets his visions, keeping them calm or still when they start jerking around. Patrick honestly cannot live by himself, for fear of choking on his own tongue or falling of the bed and cracking his head open on a table. He’s grateful to have found such an accommodating friend.

Joe is a coffee shop manager and is one of the most passionate dudes Patrick has ever met, while still managing to be ridiculously chill about most things. Two of the things that he’s not chill about are Pete and his monster. Patrick’s had visions of a visitor months before Pete actually shows up. The visions always left him with a sense of dread. They happened so frequently that when Pete finally does show up, Patrick thinks “it’s about damn time!” But Joe always has gotten a bad vibe from Pete; he doesn’t trust the thing at all and doesn’t validate him as part of humanity. Pete’s monster? There is even less trust there. 

While monsters and humans exist on different planes, they can still interact with each other to some extent. Everyone can see their own monster in some way or another (not always crystal clear, but in colors or sketches or shadows), but Pete doesn’t even know what a monster is, much less know about his own. It has no name, but Joe dubs it “that thing of yours” or “sludge fucker” (very unaffectionately) because of its unpredictable fits and spasms and tendency to ooze a dark substance around its body. (If you read my five things fic, I describe it its appearance in much more detail, but picture a winged goop monster with tons of eyes all over its body, tons of teeth, and a bad attitude). 

There are plenty of other little details about the characters and their interactions, but the overall plot of the verse is that Pete needs to find all the tablets, get Patrick to translate them, and eventually fight the Big Bad to gain his independence. Patrick’s translation reveals a prophecy about the circumstances surrounding a fight between TBB and one of it’s own rising against him. If the spawn is to overtake the master, it must replace TBB and rule over the Howls. Obviously Pete is not about that life, and refuses to go down without a fight. He’d rather die than become his creator. Patrick gets another vision that he doesn’t share with Pete, and it says that Pete could live, but the world would become unbalanced and the possibility of a greater evil might emerge. And only Patrick has the power to change the outcome of the prophecy. 

There are two endings to the story, just as there are two outcomes of the prophecy. Patrick, Joe, and Andy will fight by Pete’s side and destroy The Big Bad, but Patrick ends up betraying Pete and leaving him wasted and alone in the Howls - broken past recognition of the self and others, fueled by the same hatred and sense of betrayal as his creator did. He’s not nearly as strong as his predecessor, but he’s smarter and angrier. He seeks out humans to make hybrid drones and soldiers, hell bent on destroying the one thing and person he thought he could count on. 

In the other ending, Patrick, using the power of his monster, destroys TBB. He kills every component of TBB, including the part that made Pete. The power of the blast severely wounds Pete and still tears his vessel from his soul, but Patrick bonds a bit of his own soul to Pete’s in order to save him. His intention is to heal Pete, but instead, Pete’s monster and soul are not used to the light that Patrick infuses within him. Pete goes into a nearly year long coma but recovers and eventually works for Andy as a recon agent. Of course, there is the nagging feeling that some things have been left unsaid for too long, and that something is still lurking beneath the sea of goodness and humanity that Pete’s been allowed to join.


End file.
